Mouth at Strike. Nolita, Prostitutes and other Second Sex workers Rights
Film, Gender, Politic, Sex, activism, people
What crosses your mind when you hear someone talking about prostitution?
Prostitutes in the Bolivian city of El Alto sewed their lips together as part of a hunger strike to demand that the mayor reopen brothels and bars ordered closed after violent protests by residents last week. “We are fighting for the right to work and for our families’ survival,” Lily Cortez, leader of the El Alto Association of Nighttime Workers, told local television via Reuters.
“It’s not only us owners and the sex workers who are affected, there are thousands of waiters, cooks, bartenders, taxi drivers and street vendors who will be without income,” said Ramiro Orellana, spokesman for the business group. Prostitution in Bolivia is legal but pimping is outlawed.
Hunger strike in El Alto. REUTERS/David Mercado
The commercial exploitation of the human body is nothing new. Italian Politics stressed hypothesis to build a SexDrive Park. A sort of drive-through service, placed on fast and anonymous ways like Cristoforo Colombo in Rome, targeted at truckers and sex travelers. The government’s focus is looking at improving protection of prostitutes and clients, exclusion of uncontrolled activities of streetwalkers on city streets, places of cult, hospitals and publics places attended by underage.
Contrary to the urban picture of prostitution painted by the social recognition of sexual entertainment as sex work, the violence and the trafficking of human beings for sexual exploitation and slave labour have become two of the fastest growing worldwide problems in recent years. Victims do not agree to be trafficked or sold: they are tricked, lured by false promises, or forced into it in order to work.
The harm of prostitution is graphically evident in its health consequences. (Not only) women in prostitution suffer the same injuries that women subjected to other forms of violence against women endure, including bruises, broken bones, black eyes, concussions, and loss of consciousness. The reproductive health effects include a high incidence of unwanted pregnancies, miscarriage, multiple abortions and infertility. In addition to HIV/AIDS, chronic pelvic pain and pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are alarmingly high among women in prostitution.
In May, 1998, Sweden became one the of the first countries to prohibit the purchase of sexual services with punishments of fines or imprisonment (Swedish Government Offices, 1998). In so doing, Sweden has declared that prostitution is not a desirable economic and labor sector. Another example : Venezuela ruled that “prostitution cannot be considered work because it lacks the basic elements of dignity and social justice.”
Prostitution is a sign of economic marginalization and social inequality. Prostitution institutionalizes the buying and selling of (not only) women as commodities in the marketplace. For example, Second Life “Khannea” took her first client on her very first day in Second Life, and since then has been busy working. Khannea charges 750 Lindens (about $3 at current exchange rates) per half hour “of varied activity,” but clients generally tip more. On one occasion a man in game paid her 5,000 Lindens.
David LaChapelle, Lil’ Kim, Keep it Real, photograph for Atlantic Records, May 13th, 1999, C-print
While the most invisible part of the sex industry is the buyer and his role and responsibility in creating the demand for prostitution. Italy allowed brothels to operate legally until 1959. Italy now provides a certain amount of social protection and laws to stop pimps exploiting prostitutes. Giulio Amato recently purposed to serve legal papers in clients’ homes in order to shame them. The main problem is a socio-cultural censoring of women’s sexuality, and culture’s objectification of the fe-male body. Prostitution expresses the worth of all human bodies.
A recent example of Italian culture body censoring was the Nolita campaign. Shot by Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani, the image shows anorexic French actress Isabelle Caro, for Italian fashion label Nolita. The image was published in newspapers and featured on billboards during Milan fashion week. Then it was banned. Toscani called the ban “censorship” and said he was considering legal action. I call “censorship” the image itself: a pretty woman in a standard position, which witness an essential advertising technique to accomplish the (sex) industry based on the exploitation of a (female) body. The problem is (not only) the stigmatised body of the under-weight model. And the the solution is (not only) the medical certificates for under-weight models, attesting their good health from doctors with expertise in recognising eating disorders.
Sex industry and sex worker is also a way to neutralize the term prostitution. Of course legalization would create a whole regulatory framework: a whole regulatory set of systems for regulating who’s involved, how they are involved, health issues, access to healthcare, how to deal with the police, how to get services around sexual assault or domestic violence. As ministry Amato said “prostitution is a complexion to deal with in light of social security” un elemento complesso da gestire in un’ottica di sicurezza sociale”
Soon we will end up with prostitution as Social workers. You will need a license, certification, or registration. The rules for getting these things will depend on the State where the worker lives. This certification will make it easier to get some jobs. Pimps will become businessmen and the buyers simply customers. Soon we will end up in the perfect paradox: you will prostitute yourself to become a legal one. Let’s strike immediatly for your (social) rights.
Mamma Roma is a 1962 film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Prostitute Mamma Roma (Anna Magnani), tries to start a new life selling vegetables with her 16 year old son Ettore (Ettore Garofolo). When he later finds out she was a prostitute he succumbs to the dark side with petty crime and goes to prison. This project of self-gentrification and of “urbanizing” an illiterate provincial youth is doomed, not least by the reappearance of Mamma Roma’s old lover and pimp, Carmine—quite literally “a force from the Past”—who twice compels her to return to the streets she walked for thirty years.
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Ilari Valbonesi @ October 27, 2007